PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Problems with VS A340 IFE?
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Old 4th August 2001 | 22:56
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The Guvnor
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That's interesting. I've long held the opinion that seat back IFE is a wast of time for the following reasons:

1) It continues to have serious software reliability issues, which means that the pax get treated to what Gaza had last night - no IFE. That means p1ssed-off pax, which isn't a good idea.

2) The hardware is very heavy; and generates huge amounts of heat.

3) There's a phenomenal amount of wiring required to hook up 350/400 odd seats.

4) Installation and maintenance expense costs are every high (around $1m per aircraft, depending on system and the number of seats)

5) The licence fees for the video programming run at approximately US$1m per annum, per aircraft.

6) Income from advertising won't cover much more than a fraction of those costs - even if you're a major operator such as BA.

7) The control units (especially those stupid combination telephone handset/IFE controls) are usually sited exactly where your leg or arm is most likely to press when you move to avoid DVT ... meaning that just at the critical moment in a thriller, the display will suddenly switch to the flight tracking display.

8) Pax, especially in Y class, find it hard to see the screen especially when the bod in front has reclined his seat.

Taking all of the above into consideration, I'd say junk it and rather use decent LCD flat screen monitors throughout Y class and provide handheld DVD players or Watchmans to the premium pax.